By Dr. Franklin Dumond
The following is part three in a four part series dealing with “4 Areas Where Church Leaders Need Continuing Education.” These four areas are:
- Communication Skills
- Personal Evangelism
- Making Disciples in a Non-Christian Culture
- Maintaining an appropriate work/life balance
5 Suggestions for Making Christian Disciples in a Non-Christian Culture
A recently baptized believer visited the local bookstore. This large retail outlet boasted two floors of floor-to-ceiling shelves of books. Because it was part of a national chain the sales premise was “IF we don’t have it, we’ll get it!” The eager shopper flagged down a clerk for assistance, but the experienced clerk could not locate the requested title. In frustration the new believer explained later to a new friend at church, “I know the pastor asked us to read the book he referenced but the bookstore doesn’t have a copy of a book called Daniel.”
A guest at a rapidly growing church plant reported the experience was pleasant, the music was great and the sermon provided life application. He noted one puzzling feature. “They can’t tell time correctly. The pastor kept referencing different men but each of them seemed to have a different time that I had.”
“What do you mean?” his friend gently probed. “Well, the second time it happened I looked at my phone. It was 11:10 but the pastor said according to John that it was 3:16!”
The stories are real and they illustrate a telling point. The Christian Church is on the periphery of the larger culture and as a result the larger culture no longer teaches the basics of the Christian faith or of worship behavior.
This places the American Church back into a similar culture as that of the 1st century when the church was in its infancy. This is the Book of Acts but not the culture and environment of Acts 2. On that occasion of Pentecost a simple presentation of the gospel resulted in thousands of conversions and baptisms. In Acts 17 a similar presentation of the gospel to an environment and culture informed by a different world view resulted in only a few conversions.
A similar contrast of world views and culture can be illustrated in the book of Acts.
Acts 2 Acts 17
One God Many gods some as yet Undiscovered
Messiah is coming Messiah?
A personal God who creates the mythic gods portrayed
and is in charge in statuary
thousands believe and are baptized a few men believed
How can we make Christian disciples in a non-Christian culture?
- Communicate clearly with language that can be understood by people in the culture. We all have to work on this-even the Apostle Paul made the mistake of speaking of Resurrection in terms that caused some of the Athenians to suppose he was talking about a newly discovered goddess.
- Let the Bible speak for itself. I believe we need to avoid many of the non-biblical systematic labels that are often used in our theological discussions. The same could be said for the artificial chapter and topic headings found in our English Bibles. Many times these headings disguise the context rather than present the context of a passage.
- Use elective studies that teach the essentials of a Christian world view and biblical backgrounds as well as Christian attitudes and responses to current events. Populate these classes with seekers, new believers and senior saints.
- Incorporate important how-to instructions as part of new member classes. For example Class 201 in the suggested discipleship classes for new members addresses such topics as:
The Habit of a Daily Time with God
The Habit of Reading God’s Word
The Habit of Prayer: Talking with God
The Habit of Tithing: Giving Back to God
The Habit of Fellowship: Enjoying God’s Family
How to Start and Maintain Good Habits
- Model Christian discipleship in both small group and one-on-one relationships. Discipleship is often caught rather than taught. When people around us see that we have been with Jesus some of them will want to join us on the journey.